Source: www.reuters.com

The Bishan Community Library is the newest library in the National Library Board network situated at Bishan, Singapore which opened on 2 September 2006. Located in Bishan Central just behind Junction 8 Shopping Centre, it has a captive population of around 90,000 in the Bishan area, and is expected to help serve the needs of several nearby schools.The library was conceived in the late 1990s in light of high traffic in the Toa Payoh Community Library and Ang Mo Kio Community Library. Designed by Look Boon Gee from Look Architects ,it will have about 250,000 titles spread over four floors and a basement, with a Cafe Galilee in the first floor. Windows that protrude out of the building are actually reading “pods”, for readers who want to read quietly or use their laptops there. The design of the library won a number of awards for its architecture, locally and internationally. The awards won include the President’s Design Award in 2007 and the International Architecture Award in 2009.Library is energy efficient as well as low impact, the library makes use of atriums, natural daylighting, resource efficiencies and passive solar design. Pods cantilevered off the building’s street facade provide private reading and study nooks for library patrons. Responding to a highly constricted urban site amidst a mature satellite town, the design answers demands for an efficient construction method that minimises impact on its surroundings. Insitu concrete structure comprising four typical floor slabs over a basement are linked by a common lift and staircase core, and internal columns are kept to a minimum through the use of post-tensioned floor slabs, effectively maximising floor area and increasing flexibility of collection storage. Exploiting its potential of noise segregation, the basement was designed to house the children’s section, defining a subterranean cavern-like realm where imagination can run free.

Hong Yi is a Master of Architecture graduate from the University of Melbourne, and was awarded a Melbourne Abroad Scholarship to study at the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands, which broadened her perspective in European arts and architecture. She was Australian national finalist in the SONA super studio competition in 2009-2010  and received the Elenberg Fraser award for Best Presentation in both years. She also received Special Mention for the AA Prize for Unbuilt Works 2010, and featured in the Jan/Feb 2011 issue of Architecture Australia Magazine.

She is also known as the artist who ‘loves to paint, but not with a paintbrush’. Her painting of Yao Ming with a basketball and Jay Chou using coffee were Youtube hits, and she was featured in media around the world. Her other work includes portraits Ai Weiwei using 100,000 sunflower seeds and Zhang Yimou with 750 pairs of socks and bamboo sticks.

She was recently invited to speak in Monterey, California at the EG Conference, which is known as the premiere gathering of and for innovators in media, technology, entertainment and education. She is a currently working in the Shanghai office of Hassell, an established Australian architecture firm. She absolutely enjoys being an architect by day and an artist by twilight.

source:redhongyi.com

Shayna has an intelligent sense of design, immense skill and a deep understanding of glass. She creates works that are unique, thoughtful and exude exquisite beauty. Shayna is represented by Echt Gallery.

PROCESS OF CREATION
It is a very lengthy and time-consuming process that utilizes many aspects of glassworking starting from the raw creation of the individual glass pieces in the hotshop to the “warm” process of slumping the glass in the kiln, followed by the assembly of the final sculpture.

Hot Process:A technique originally used by the Venetians, cane is created by layering colorants in between gathers of clear glass and stretching the molten glass into long rods until a diameter of between 3 & 20 mm is achieved. Cane pulling is often compared generating taffy candy.

Warm Process:After a supply of colored cane is generated, the warm-working process begins. To create the wavy patterns in the glass, the cane needs to be curvy, instead of straight (which the process yields). The rods of cane are placed in the kiln, over metal molds, and brought up to temperatures around 1200 degrees until they assume the form of the mold itself.

Cold Process:The cane is then cut into tens of thousands of individual pieces, which are sorted according to shape and length. One-by-one the cane is hand placed into a frame to evoke movement. The process is conducive to only working 2 square inches at a time, from one corner, to the others. It takes approximately 45 minutes to complete 2 square inches of the three-dimensional canvas.

Source:http://contempglass.org

Source:http://www.scottsculptures.co.uk

Death can inspire life. Especially in New Orleans, on the corner of Marigny and Burgundy, where the Before I Die project has used the specter of urban decay and death to create art and inspire. Using a boarded up house as a canvas, artist Candy Chang transformed a haunting reminder of blight and divestment into a powerful affirmation of human life and imagination.

Before I Die is an global public art project that invites people to share their hopes and dreams in public space. Originally created on an abandoned house in Candy’s neighborhood in New Orleans after losing someone she loved, the project is about remembering what is important to you and creating public spaces that better reflect what matters to us as a community and as individuals.Candy Chang wanted to know what was important to the people around her.

“Before I die I want to _______.” so anyone walking by can pick up a piece of chalk, reflect on their lives, and share their personal aspirations in public space.It was all an experiment. By the next day the wall was entirely filled out and it kept growing. People’s hopes and dreams made her laugh out loud, tear up, and feel consolation during her own tough times. The wall transformed a neglected space into a constructive one where we can restore perspective, remember we are not alone, and understand our neighbors in new and enlightening ways. The Atlantic called it “one of the most creative community projects ever, and the project was featured on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams.

After receiving many requests from people around the world, she and her Civic Center colleagues created the Project Website beforeidie.cc to help people make a wall with their community and share their wall online. Thanks to passionate people around the world, the project has expanded to South Africa, the Netherlands, Mexico, Australia, Portugal, Kazakhstan, and beyond. Taken together, the Before I Die project offers a public space for contemplation and a snapshot of the values our neighbors hold dear.

Here is a formula to make your own wall;

Ogilvy and Mather Colombia agency developed this Pictionary work for their cliet Mattel.

Yuki Matsueda is a Japanese artist who explored the 3D dimension in new ways.

Source:http://yuki-matsueda.com

Pakistan & India are rich in camel breeding,and their are festivals in which camels are presented with a creative hair cut . The job takes about 3 years to make an engraved tatoo for an individual camels. First 2 years, there is just growing the hair and starts trimming. Inhabitant of desert does not use the iron engraved for the camels. They just cut and dye the camel hair. 

Conflict Kitchen is a take-out restaurant that only serves cuisine from countries with which the US is in conflict.

Located in Pittsburgh, the Conflict Kitchen is a take-out restaurant that only serves cuisine from countries with which the United States is in conflict. The food is served out of a take-out-style storefront that rotates identities every six months to highlight another country and the idea is to spark dialogue and engage the community. Each iteration of the project is augmented by events, performances, and discussions that seek to expand the engagement the public has with the culture, politics, and issues at stake within the focus country. Often live international Skype dinner parties between citizens of Pittsburgh and professionals, documentary filmmakers and activists from the conflicting nations are organized.

The project works with communities in Pittsburgh that representative of the different conflict countries, and they come up with a menu of the street food you would find in the major cities of each country. They have included vegetarian and sometimes vegan options on every menu, and have so far covered food from Afghanistan, Iran, and Venezuela, with Cuba and North Korea planned for the future. With each iteration, the store front is redesigned and the restaurant name is spelled in the language of the country the project is highlighting. The food comes packaged in custom-designed wrappers that include interviews with Iranians both in Iran and the United States on subjects ranging from street food and popular culture to the current political turmoil.

Conflict Kitchen is a project by Jon Rubin and Dawn Weleski and is funded by the Sprout Fund,The Waffle Shop,The Benter Foundation, the Center for the Arts in Society, The Studio for Creative Inquiry, and the sale of food. Graphics were designed by Brett Yasko. Architecture designed by Pablo Garcia of Point.